Awards, click to see the best album of 2010!!! (not spam I swear, here’s proof: Battlestar Galactica, The Flaming Lips, ID4)

So as the year closes, a man must reflect on the joys, sorrows, laughs, and tears of the past year. In my case I gotta reflect on sweet music.

Just to give some history of this illustrious award, I’ll present some of the previous winners. It’ll help show the prestige of the award along with that much needed context. I would pretend I was alive in 1969 and had to choose between Abbey Road and Led Zeppelin’s self titled debut, but naw, that would be too hard to do for each year since 1960. (Abbey Road for the record)

But I can tell you the most recent winner, as declared in a facebook status around this time last year. I declared The Hazards of Love by The Decemberists the winner. It won by a fair margin despite being up against some albums from my old favorites such as Wilco (the album), and Embryonic (Flaming Lips). I loved how it was a modern rock Opera, complete with epic swells and luls, and common themes interweaved into several songs. Also, despite using non traditional (for rock) instruments such as the accordion, they rocked hard!

So as anyone who has watched a lame overdrawn out awards show, you know I have to drag this out a little bit. So without further dragging, here’s a list of the runner ups:

Is There Nothing We Can Do: by Badly Drawn Boy. Ok ok, so this came out at the end of last year, don’t worry its just a runner up anyways. I’ve loved this group for ages. This album got me through the CPA tests successfully the first time! So I had to give it a place on this list. Those who know the group already know of their excellence in doing soundtracks. About a Boy like this album, and heck like The Hazards of Love has recurring themes and great dreamy atmosphere throughout. Check it out, you’ll only regret it if your kinda lame. (also side note, unfortunately the new album from BDB wasn’t quite up to the standards of this and older classics, still good, but not awesome)

It pains me not to give the award to this next group. They’ve been on my radar for a while, but I never had the opportunity to really appreciate them. Luckily all the albums were like $3 right before I came to California. The Arcade Fire has since become one of my favorite bands. The Suburbs is said to have “early 30’s angst”. I agree (and almost can relate :), it is an achievement in its own right and is fairly unique. As a previous facebook status stated, I actually had a dream where 2 songs from this record were performed flawlessly in the background. It definitely got in my head and was a staple in getting me to work in the morning. Also, check out the drum beat in Modern Man, its fun to try.

The final runner up is an anomaly in my collection. I really don’t have too much music that’s related to it (if there is any music closely related to it). Its pretty much techno indie rock. It was a lucky find off of serious satellite radio. I guess they have been big and I’ve enjoyed going to their older stuff. I’m talking of LCD Soundsystem of course. They totally are Daft Punk for todays kids. The lead man is very much amusing, with a voice reminiscent of the guy from Cake. Lyrically, they make me laugh with their observations and “talk singing”. Highlights include Dance yrself clean and You Wanted a Hit.

Honorable mention goes to Ben Folds’ Lonely Avenue and to Weezer’s Death to False Metal and Hurley.

And so we reach the end of our show, where we recycle jokes. There can only be one winner so without further mumbo jumbo… Spoon: Transference. I’ve loved the band since like 10^th grade (when I discovered some great stuff like this, Wilco, and the flaming lips and the shins…) Spoon has been consistently interesting. Each album has an intensity about it that is different from their other albums. For instance, they had the garage band sound going on back in A Series of Sneaks, a melancholy love going on in Girls can Tell, a dark plea for rock in Gimme Fiction, and now with Transferance, Spoon has stripped down its sound to a more intimate sound, opening with a great example of this. Is Love Forever has an interesting progression in lyrics(weirdest fan video ever). The Mystery Zone explores what happens to acquaintances who move on in life and disappear into obscurity. Written in Reverse is the bombastic “pop” track. My personal favorite from the album is “out go the lights” Its gentle, showcases his amazing voice, and drifts into a beautiful ending. Its pretty well perfect.

Of course this show was rigged, I saw Spoon live in SLC with Emily. They blew me away. Masters at their craft, how could I not give them #1. Concerts are funny because you want them to play their old hits but they usually play new stuff. In this case however, I was entranced with both the old and the new and again, went home sans breath.

Also I’ve been listening to an NPR concert from Spoon in Austin while I’ve been writing. So good,

Anyways, goodnight folks, its been a good year eh?

Music Volume 1: The Essentials: Selections from my collection: 60's/tangents

Now its music time! Hopefully I can expand my readership/ blog followers, by delving into a more universal topic than Video Games. I’ll do a few more video game posts to round’ off the subject but for now I’ll be going through my music collection and memories.

So where do I start, the beginning of course. By the beginning I mean The Renaissance. So here’s the short version of Music 201 and 202. Classical music is lame, it gets better and better as they break down the rules… peaking at the romantic period (late 1800’s) with Debussy and Rochmoninov. Then it gets weird (which I like), and then you reach current classical which is mainly movie scores.

OK so now where do I REALLY start J Don’t get me wrong, I actually love “classical” music, but talking about it wouldn’t be as entertaining. Perhaps I can dive a lil deeper into that later. For now, it be time to rock.

Thinking of my itunes list, there are a plethora of options on how to organize music. Anything from by song, by album, by artist, by genre, by date etc… I think by time and then by genre will suit our needs, what say you?

I’ve written a paper on The Beatles, which unfortunately I don’t have access to, since I could post that and save myself a lot of work (I write for your benefit, you know this). But alas, I start from scratch. Now technically I should start a rock conversation with its origin in the Blues, transition with Elvis (whom I recently found out my dad saw in concert) and the other folks from the late 50’s ala the Everly Brothers or the ingenious Buddy Holly. That would be proper, but hey, that’s not what rock’s about so imma start with what I want because I wanna.

Ok ok, I won’t start with the flaming lips, Wilco or Fountains of Wayne, since that would wouldn’t be based on any kind of logic. But as I hinted, my history of rock goes back to the Beatles. In fact the rise and fall of the Fab 4 mirrors the synopsys I gave of classical music: started of with rules (Help), broke them (Rubber Soul) got weird (White Album), and returned to a more classic sound that learned from all their experiences(Let it Be), like Movie soundtracks did with classical composing. That’s one of the biggest strengths of those guys, they evolved and didn’t keep producing what everyone thought they wanted. Granted, I do like the early Beatles tracks, but if they continued with more Please Please Me kind of stuff into the late 60’s they would just be another pop band. It was dangerous, exciting, and they pulled off new sounds throughout their career. Even now, many moons later, that is evident in their music and keeps things exciting.

Now don’t get me wrong, experimenting and changing one’s sound doesn’t always yield the best results, but I’d be danged if I didn’t mention a modern(ish) success story parallel. Weezer will be forever known and defined by their excellent debut (the Blue Album). Many a folk wanted them to go into the studio and pump out another feel good nerd surfer pop album. If you’re a reader of my blog (which if you read that, you are) you likely know what happened next. Pinkerton flopped. It was so bold, so brash and so fox. However, mr. Cuomo crafted one of the greatest albums of all time says this astute young observer. With lyrics that were honest, though tragic and hilarious, it perfectly captured Teen angst in a unique and heartfelt way that the Blue Album only hinted at. While Rivers & co. went back pop and climbed the charts again, I still prefer the rough and almost free form rock so prevalent in Pinkerton.

Anyways, back to the 60s…

Although I love indie rock, (ala spoon), I do love me some well written “pop” (ala Fountains of Wayne). Going back to the 60’s, one can see this battle raging. Luckily I don’t have to choose between say The Doors and The Beach Boys. Both were game changing in my mind. Jim Morrison’s dark vocals is in stark contrast to Brian Wilson’s aw shucks American boy’s, but no one can deny they weren’t both prolific singers and songwriters. My family’s band has been known to play many a song from both groups( i wish i had some links to our concerts, i'll have to get on that). In fact I had a ton of fun screamin out “Break on Through” at the last gig. Roadhouse Blues has been fun all these years too. Anyways, they are fun to listen to as well (also, try out When the Music is Over for a great Jam session and rock scream at the beginning ) But our band also played Beach Boys a lot… songs like Help Me Rhonda always got folks happy. One of my favs is Don’t worry Baby . I’ve been listening to it a lot lately and have found it to be a perfect pop song. Such fantastic harmonies. Its been echoed by my man Rivers and my girl Manson Anyways, point is since good music can be made in different ways, one can be a fan of seemingly opposite sides of the rock spectrum. Which is not to say all music is good…

But I’m gonna avoid mentioning any bad music in this blog, only bringing it out in links for comedic value. Also, I’m limiting these posts to those songs I have or at least someone in my fam does. Anyways, I’m excited to branch into different topics such as punk, new wave, soul, and many more. Happy listening!

Dreamcast and PS2

So... we enter the last "classic" period of gaming pour moi (current generation started when i was already an adult... i was still a teenager for these 2) I must admit i have a soft spot in my heart for the Dreamcast. It was pretty powerful in its day and was the first of that generation so it had the "gee-wiz" appeal. The reason almost anybody got it (besides the ingenious (its thinking) marketing of coming out 9/9/9) was Soul Caliber. That game was pretty, it was smooth, and it was huge. My buddy Eduardo got the DC right when it came out and we played that game a ton uhm...during seminary. Well his mom taught us on Saturdays and the lessons were short so well, many hours of Soul Caliber ensued.

The system was known for outstanding and very quirky game design(The Typing of the Dead, Seaman, and Space Channel 5 come to mind...look them up, genius stuff i tell ya. Though i never had it, Jet Set Radio was a fantastic example of pure awesome. The Japanese bublegum pop soundtrack was hilarious and actually pretty catchy as you went around graffiti-ing up the streets. I ended up getting The first 2 tony hawk games on DC since it was better than PS1... Those games were a ton of fun. One of my fav games on DC was actually Rayman 2, though it was on other systems, the DC version was the best. The game was like playing in a painting, and was very atmospheric, again, the music was fantastic. Rounding up my other games are Virtua Tennis and Marvel Vs Capcom 2. Unfortunately the DC died fairly quickly, but it had some pretty great games in its short lifespan. for comprehensive coverage click here

There was a big reason it died however, and that was the PS2. Its probably the most successful system of all time, heck sony still sells them in decent numbers even now. My first games were Timesplitters and SSX. They were fast, and showcased some of the power of the system. Eventually Gran Turismo 3 became a huge thing for me. I had rented the other 2, but man, 3 was pretty and...well it had a great soundtrack. I never was big into the endurance races (200 laps? no thanks) but it was fun upgrading cars and getting all the licenses in the wee hours of the morning. Aggressive Inline was another favorite, it was a rollerblading game along the lines of the Tony Hawk games. Great soundtrack, and a ton of fun. Final Fantasy 10 was pretty, in fact i never beat that one, i should get on that.

Didn't have too much time with gamecube, but it did have a fun Zelda game along with some Rouge Squadron games. Metroid Prime was stellar as well. Luckily, the Wii revived GC for me and I have gotten some sweet games on the cheap (ala the complete Mega Man collection) Also, never had an Xbox, though my bro got one. Halo

anyways, thats it for videogames for awhile... I need to talk about current generation games, as well as Computer games, but for now imma move on to Music, Concerts, Movies, or TV

fun with N64, PS1 and trampolines!

Alrighty, time for this week’s edition. Now we are onto the Nintendo 64 and Playstation 1. These were my middle school days at Van Wyck in New York. As such, they were full of irresponsible and very memorable experiences with my best friend at the time: Ryan Barrett. I wish I had a journal from then, but I’ll do my best here to recall the highlights.

First off: the trampoline. As fate would have it, the Barrett family moved into my ward when we moved back from Tokyo. We became friends pretty quickly and became lil punks. We had some sweet games besides all the normal trampoline jumping and flipping. From what I remember, it’s a good thing we are still functioning in today’s society after the things we pulled. Again, as fate would have it, the Trampoline was positioned near the Barrett’s deck. So we got braver and braver with all the things we did off the deck. All the way to the point where we jumped off the deck in fully zipped up sleeping bags! Various games involved blindfolds while jumping around. The sprinkler was great to get a little more bounce during the summer.

We had a sweet pool in Hopewell Junction. We then of course perfected the “sailor dive” and even the back dive (which I will not do anymore due to many backflops). Another classic memory was at the IBM country club pool in Poughkeepsie (town of me birth). I have a lot of history there, as that’s where I learned to swim and even jump off the diving board at the age of 2 or 3. Anyways fast forward back to middle school, besides burning our feet on the hot brick ground on the way to and from the snack bar, there were other hazards we enjoyed. Messing around on the hand railing left Ryan with a sweet chipped tooth. The kiddie pool was always nice and warm. And we spent a lot of time warming up in the showers, but unfortunately the adults would usually shower naked, so we of course left “if” that happened. Naturally they became the “if showers” as well as starting another code word “if” for uhm…something else. (def not putting up a link there…) Also, speaking of code, that’s when we started pushing buttons on the phone to fake curse at each other 3J and began imitating the sweet sounds of the aliens from Mars Attacks!.

Anyways on to the gaming memories… At Leechmere’s in the Poughkeepsie Galleria I first saw a Nintendo 64 with Mario 64. It was so ridiculously ahead of the 16 bit games I talked about last time. I instantly wanted it, like whoa, like much more than i wanted a wacky waving inflatable arm flailing tube man. I wasn’t one of the kids who got it first day, (with this or anything except PS2). It was pretty expensive and games were crazy expensive too, all 2 of them were 70 bucks. I must have waited about a year since the first games I got were “greatest hits”. I stretched “itsa me Mario”s face around for a while and then started a most revolutionary game. Nintendo had to basically invent how a 3D game would work and did it right the first time. Starfox 64 was amazing and actually had a memorable multiplayer experience with many a Barrel-roll. I have a tie between the top 2 games though. Goldeneye stands as the greatest multiplayer game of all time while Zelda: Ocarina of Time stands as one of the greatest adventure games ever. Nights staying up playing goldeneye were many. Tweaking the rules always kept things fresh. My favorite always was one-shot kills with pistols only. Also I loved looking on other peoples screens and anticipating a shot before they knew I was there. So classic, so cheap, but also… not cheating! Oddjob was never allowed. Proximity mines always led to trouble.

Mario Kart 64 – Always fun, loved the fact you could get payback from beyond the grave in Battle Mode as the Babomb.

Star Wars games…for another post

And then there was Playstation… I was a Nintendo Fanboy, never thought twice about 3DO, Jaguar, or even Sega Saturn. Ryan’s family had a playstation, and that changed things. One thing playstation had going for it was a bazzilion games. Although I didn’t know Final Fantasy from the early days, I was introduced to it with FF7. Now that was an amazing adventure. I loved the music so much, but the story rocked, the gameplay was polished, and the game was much bigger than anything I ever saw to that point. Spoiler alert, the villain kills the main love interest (who was a playable character) and then uses her and other things (destroying the universe) to attempt to become a god. And he was awesome! It was another game worthy of my top 10. Also FF8 later on became one of my favorites, starting off with a bang Also, the main guys weapon is a Sword with a gun on it, so cool...in fact only one thing cooler than that. I ended up getting a PS1 late in the game as it were so it was cheap and the games were cheap as well. This was nice as I could catch up faster. I absolutely loved the style of the Crash Bandicoot games. Gran Turismo was a fantastic racing game. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night quickly became a favorite as well. It had an amazing techno-goth soundtrack (check out the lil diddy starting at 4:33) and the artwork was perfect.

I still love Nintendo, but PS1 helped fill the void and fill the space in my heart Sega used to have (though I’ll give sega some lovin yet see Dreamcast*). As such, in the present, I have a Wii and a PS3.

The next post:

So I figure my life is gonna go into hyperspace soon so I better pen another blog post before I truly become an old man. So… on to the good stuff, where were we, ah yes… Super Nintendo vs. Sega Genesis. A lot has been written on the matter, so I’ll say it straight up front, both rocked and its hard to pick one over the other, though i'd have to give the edge to Super Nintendo. In some ways, its my favorite video game era, it took the foundation of Nintendo and kicked it up a notch without messing with 3D graphics (to which Playstation 1, and N64 started the growing pains of that leap forward.)

Sega… got that at the Ala Moana mall believe it or not. It must have been over the summer in the Japan days. We spent time in New York every summer as well as visited family in Utah when we lived in Tokyo. On our way back to Japan, we would stop in Hawaii for a week. Anyways, I saved my allowance for pretty much the whole year and when we got to Hawaii I picked up a Sega. My first experience though was a year or 2 back where a friend in Virginia was playing a Michael Jackson game. It was pretty much amazing (I still want to revisit it, its probably really lame). As this was before the internet (gamespot and IGN), I got my gaming news from others as well as Electronic Gaming Monthly from time to time. The system came with games back than and it was sonic 1 and 2. Also got Ecco The Dolphin and streets of rage 2! My brother got NHL 93 and 94, FIFA 94 and Roger Clemens baseball. All these games were sweet and caused much fun to be had. In Japan I had my own room in which I had a TV set up with the video games. Once in a while I was sent to my room…which being trapped there wasn’t too bad of a fate at that point :v.

Super Nintendo… got that in the University Mall at Babbages! It was about 2 years after Sega. The family downstairs had one and I instantly wanted it. They had Super Mario World and F-zero. Both amazin’. After another year of saving my allowance (I still save my money a decent amount for nice things, a life lesson in patience/reward learned in my formative years) I finally got it. It started with an earthquake, The Legend of Zelda: A Link To the Past.

Goodness gracious me, that was a dang fine game. It was huge! There were so many things to do. Also it led to one of the only evil thing my brother matt ever did to me. I can’t remember the fight, but I do remember the conclusion…he erased my game! Talk about crushing the dreams of a poor lil orphan child. Anyways, last summer I played and finally beat it and concluded that it’s probably my favorite game of all time. Even now, its music and sound effects continue to influence my life as they are prominent in my cell phone texting sounds as well as were featured heavily in Scott Pilgrim vs. The World.

My sister and I up to this point hadn’t bonded too much over video games but one key game from this period changed that: Mario Kart. The original Mario kart was genius. I actually prefer it in many ways to the cube and wii versions. Mario Kart 64 is a close contender though. Anyways we often had “Mario at midnight” rendezvous and played into the night. Also if you've ever heard me say "Mario", my pronunciation of Merio* came from these days. We still aren’t sure if mom and dad knew we were up late, perhaps they allowed it since we weren’t fighting.

Speaking of fighting another key game of this time that changed the gaming world was Mortal Kombat 2. I remember feeling a lil guilty over the games extreme violence (toasty) but again it brought me and my bro, and surprisingly my sister together. I first played it in the arcades in Hawaii in the Fun Factory. It was over the top, dumb, and very, very entertaining. Like Zelda, the game is still a lot of fun today. Between that and Street Fighter 2, Jeff Woodland and I had many a glorious battle.

There were other games, but these defined the era for me. They were the Japan days, the Poughkeepsie days (in fourth grade I lived in Poughkeepsie again) and the beginning of middle school with Ryan Barrett. And thus it was, even so...

Nintendo Part 3: highlights from other games...

When i set up my new apartment it will be easier to finish off the rest of my Nintendo memories since every game we had will be displayed. I'll update this then.

Mario 2: Totally crazy, hard, and great. It was all a dream but i'm glad it introduced the Shyguy.

Mario 3: Fantastic, fun factor off the charts even today.

Blades of Steel: So whomever loses a fight goes to the penalty box... how cool is that? So i went to her room and read her diary

Battletoads: dang fun, impossibly hard...even with game genie!

Zelda 1 & 2: more on these when i cover A Link to The Past

Ninja Gaiden: cinematics blew me away back in the day

Bubble Bobble: Bonding time with Nia

Ghostbusters: Fun game...terrible ending (just words)

Tis all for tonight, tune in for the update later. Also next time we'll be discussing the Next Generation... super nintendo verse Sega!

Nintendo Part 2: (Mega Man)

And so we move on to one of the greatest franchises of all time...Mega Man. In fact, its so great that capcom released Mega Man 9 and 10 within the last few years, which tickles me to no end.

So we only borrowed the first one so we never had it. Thats probably ok since it was pretty dang hard even for mega man standards. In fact, we never had Mega Man 2 back in the day. But... in the year of 20XX the series kicked into full gear and we borrowed that one a ton! A pinnacle in 8 bit music, and difficult but conquerable gameplay, Mega Man 2 stands as one of the greatest games of all time. The dragon (video was on easy mode...lame) at the end of the first Dr Wiley stage caused much frustration and elation when defeated.

We actually had Mega Man 3 and 4 when they came out. Both excellent games, building on the foundation of 2. Recently I got the Mega Man collection for Gamecube (playable on Wii) that has 1-8 on it. Its a party.

And as I mentioned, the 9 and 10 just came out. Heres to many more from the blue bomber.

-Fun fact, Mega Man is Rockman in Japan.

-fun music videos

Also Mega Man 9 remix rocks!

So i might as well get to it eh? (Nintendo: part 1, the France days)

Well, as in the battle of any format such as VHS vs Beta, Sega vs Super Nintendo, Blu Ray vs HD DVD etc... content is king. So like the early days of those battles, imma jumpstart the blog with heaps of content. Now the beginning is a very good place to start and its only fitting that I commence with Super Mario Brothers since came out this day 25 years ago. Before there was Mario, i did not know video games (well i was only 6 months old anyways). Before our family got a Nintendo I suppose we had some computer games (the topic of another post) but we didn't have Atari. So the real genesis of games came when my family lived in the south of France. I really don't know how or why, but my theory is that Grandma Betty sent it on my folks request (and $). As i was a wee young lad, i don't remember the occasion, but soon enough, it became a part of me. Its a well known fact among my family that I called it Onintendo since i wanted it "On". We didn't have too many games for a while, but the ones we had ended up being some of the great classics. We had the triple game with the aforementioned Super Mario Bros. , Duck Hunt, and Track & Field. We also had Excitebike, Tetris, Jaws, and Castlevania 2:Simon's quest. Many a hours were spent with these games, even my sister and my dad got into Tetris. But my main game buddy was my brother Matt. In fact, he still is since we are going to beat Reach tomorrow :D Though not classic by others, "Jaws" was one that we always played. In fact, in one of Matt's famous tall tales, he told me that Jaws 2 was coming out and that it would have Hammerhead sharks! He would always have some kind what is now referred to as "Fan Fiction" about our games. This of course I took as reality.

Anyways, i don't remember much of France...mainly just moods, atmospheres and smells. But alas, those games have been with me ever since then. I just packed up all of them and they will be displayed prominently in my new apartment in Palo Alto. Almost all of them are operational unlike some other systems. And oh yes, they will be played on my 50 inch with 7.1 surround.

So thats my first real post. I hope its over the top enough for ya.

Welcome to Medieval Times!

Welcome to Medieval times!

So after the wonderful experiences with the VIP's of 203 and the Reachin for Peaches blogs/, it has become necessary to branch off and bloom on my own with this very special blog. Its almost a metaphor for me moving off on my own. But only "almost" as it will mostly focus on the past and pending. Which is to say the media i grew up on. Rather than writing of important stuff like how my career took off and how Zooey Deschanel and I finally got together, i'm gonna focus on the different periods of video games, movies and music. In a way these things have affected my life way more than they probably should have, so as such, this is kind of my journal for the subject matter that doesn't matter but really does matter since they shaped me into who i am today. So as a journal of sorts, the purpose is to give the reader insights into the mind of a friend. But more importantly, it will be a place to whine over whether Mega Man 2 or Mega Man 3 (totally 2) is the better game, and discuss the tragedy of the Sega Dreamcast, the triumph of the common man in Pete and Pete, as well as grapple with such tough issues as whether The Bends is better than OK Computer (hint: it is). And thus it begins...